The underside of your tongue

I bite my tongue, raw edges ache,

words caught between truth and a silent quake.

A lunch table chat, it stung like the heat,

a friend laid bare wounds, the unsaid, bittersweet.

What lingers below, in shadows confined,

a soft, trembling truth that I dare not unwind.

A taste like regret, thick and unspoken,

what’s hidden inside, the heart, nearly broken.